New feature: A shape picker menu for draw.io

Do you enjoy riding bikes? I love it. There is nothing more beautiful than riding through nature for a few hours and forgetting the daily routine. I love it so much that I want to buy a new bike (of course, one with a carbon frame).  My wife wanted to know why it had to be carbon.  “A bike made out of aluminum will also get you up the mountain!”.  I told her that a carbon-frame bike is much lighter which in turn makes it much easier to get up that mountain, ride a longer tour, and ends with a great sense of achievement.  All of which leads to me going home in a great mood.  Everyone wins! We want you to win too so we’re bringing you our newest feature: the draw.io shape picker menu!

Now, not every situation in life can and should be handled like a marriage conversation in which you ask for permission to buy something. But the bottom line is, some solutions simply work well the way they are. Nevertheless, we strive for improvement. Why? Because we can.  draw.io has an amazingly simple and fast editor. Anyone who has ever created a flow chart with draw.io knows exactly what I am talking about. You have an existing shape and want to create a new shape with a permanent yet dynamic connection? Before you say “Oh, but that doesn’t sound easy!”.  Well, it is easy with draw.io – with one click!

Accessing and using the new shape picker menu

Adding shapes to your canvas was always easy.  You could choose a shape from the shape library by clicking on it or clicking and dragging it over to the exact position you wanted.  Now, we’ve made things even easier with our shape picker menu.

You can now just double click on the drawing area to open the shape picker menu and choose a shape.  The great thing is, you can also choose to add text directly as well as just the usual shapes.

Already have a shape on your canvas and now you want to add a new one with a connector?  Just as easy!  Hover over your existing shape until you see the light blue arrows.  Choose one of them, and click.  The shape picker menu will appear again, with a selection of shapes from our basic library.  Choose a shape by clicking and it will add the shape with the connector in one step.

Just like the bike, you have an upgraded version of a shape selection tool to help you diagram even faster and more efficiently.  The best thing is, it didn’t cost you a thing! Confluence Cloud customers get the new feature automatically, Server and Data Center users of draw.io for Confluence only need to update the app.

Were you on a staycation over the summer and missed out on hearing about some of our other new features?  We also added new, fresh color schemes for your shapes as well as an upgrade to our tables!

If you have any questions about the new feature or suggestions on how we can further improve, we always love hearing from our draw.io friends!  Until then, have fun picking your shapes and happy diagramming.